


About Last Night

by tielan



Series: Skin Deep [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bruises, Community: kink_bingo, Consent Issues, Coulson Lives, F/M, Love Bites, Sex Pollen, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:37:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a man gains a reprieve from Death Row, he’ll still spend the rest of his life behind bars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	About Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Bingo box #5 - 'bites/bruises' but I worked 'sex pollen' into it, too. I'm trying to get through the rest of my 3x3 bingo box before Amnesty 2012 ends, but it's going to be tight!
> 
> Also, I seem to really like putting Steve through the emotional wringer.

Steve paced the enclosed room, itching beneath his skin as he dragged his hands roughly through his too-short hair. It was growing back after the Russian infiltration, but it wasn’t a comfortable length for him just yet.

At this moment, nothing was comfortable. His body had _hummed_ ever since they'd returned from the mission, electric and energised.

He should be in the gym, working this off, sparring with—But Natasha was busy, still. Probably. Most likely. No-one was prepared to go in and interrupt the Widow and her chosen prey. Not that anyone had heard Barton object.

Thor was gone. Stark was gone. Banner was gone.

There was no-one left to stop him.

* * *

_“Will you be alright?”_

_With his hands wrapped tightly around the controlling yoke of the Quinjet, Steve gave the only answer he could. “Yes.”_

_If Thor sensed it for the lie it was, he hadn’t contradicted Steve, but only nodded once before walking out the ramp off which Stark and Banner had leaped mere moments before, their gazes hard and bright as they went hunting._

* * *

Steve shuddered as the ache clawed through him again, and pressed his back against the wall, willing himself to walk out the door and away. He should be somewhere else—anywhere else! He knew he was trespassing, but somehow it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was—

The woman who opened the door to her quarters, who reached automatically for her weapon as she realised she had a visitor, before her eyes went wide and wary. “Rogers?”

“I had nowhere else to go.” No-one else to go to. No-one else he wanted.

* * *

_“Stark and Banner are headed for the Tower. Warn Pepper.”_

_“But—” Realisation dawned sharply. “Dr. Foster, too?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Will you be alright?” At least she didn’t ask him who he wanted notified. He wasn’t sure he could have kept himself from saying things that shouldn’t be said across an open channel._

_“I may need some guidance bringing the Quinjet in,” was what he gave her. “I’m not sure I can—”_

_“You will.”_

_Her certainty anchored him._

* * *

Time stretched across Steve’s skin, a near-unbearable pressure as Maria stared at him for a long moment, her weapon out but held pointed at the floor with slim, steady hands, her expression a careful mask.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “I need—”

 _I need you to order me out. Please._ He couldn’t make himself leave, but she could. She would. She _had_ to.

She didn’t.

Instead, she reached out one hand behind her and closed the door, thumbing the lock as she did so. Then she cocked the safety on the gun, stepped in beside him and put it away in her desk drawer. And somehow Steve’s hand was cupping her nape, his thumb sliding up into the hollow behind her ear as he leaned his head against hers – warm skin and soft and sweet - and tense.

“I want—” But Steve stopped, unable to quite express what he wanted from her.

He didn’t have to. Her palm brushed his cheek, skimming stubble. “I know,” she said.

* * *

_“Well,” said Dr. Hansen cheerfully, “it looks like the contaminant is no longer present, which is just as well for all of us here on the helicarrier. From what we’ve been able to tell, the contaminant heightens your—”_

_“Hansen,” Steve cut through the man’s explanations, hating to be short with him, but unable to bear this much longer. If he didn’t get moving, he’d claw his way out of his skin. “How long before it burns out?”_

_“Well, without knowing what—” Hansen stopped. “We don’t know, Captain. But until it does, I’d suggest you remain on the helicarrier and in your quarters.”_

* * *

Steve woke in unfamiliar darkness, with a sharp, startled breath. It took him a moment to remember, a moment to realise that the warm, naked weight lying against him was Maria.

The warm, naked, _limp_ weight lying against him. _No. God, no!_ He jerked up, half-dragging off the covers, fear gouging at his belly in great slashes of nausea as he cupped her cheek and rolled her over onto her back, calling for the low lights to come on. “Maria?”

Her lashes fluttered as the room brightened into shadows. She murmured something indistinct but didn’t rouse, instead reaching one arm out to snag the covers and drag them up and over her as she rolled onto her side, facing away from him.

And Steve let her go, his heart thudding in uneven pulses as he stared at the bruises that smudged her shoulders and waist, stark against the old pale scars of her childhood.

* * *

_Her breath caught as he pushed her back, his tongue already savouring the taste of her throat as he sandwiched her between him and the door – a rock and a hard place._

_“No escape,” he murmured in her ear as he pressed against her, fitting himself into her so she had no room to run. “No evasion.”_

_“I won’t—” The words were lost beneath his lips. One hand pulled free of his imprisoning hold to slide in the collar of his shirt, her fingernails grazing his shoulder. “Steve.”_

_Steve lined his hips up against hers and thrust once, hard, the movement threat and promise both as he murmured her name and swallowed her gasp._

* * *

Steve didn’t know how long it was before he could bring himself to move, his hand trembling as it hovered over the bruises he’d inflicted on her last night. Last night?

He glanced over at the timepiece above the desk – and remembered…

_… Maria sprawled backwards over the desk, her knees spread wide as he gripped her thighs and moved in her with long, slow strokes, watching the fog of sexual pleasure blur her gaze as he drove her over the edge…_

His body stirred – just desire, now, none of the driving need that had been in him yesterday.

In a way, that was worse.

Somehow he dragged himself out of the bed, the cooler temperature chilling his stiffening cock as he pressed himself against the wall, as far away from her as the room would allow.

* * *

_Steve knew the moves, although he wasn’t practised at them. He just didn’t know how they applied to this woman. But he had the time and the desire to learn what she liked._

_She liked him kneeling between her legs, so he draped her thighs over his shoulder, his tongue sliding over her nub until she writhed and whimpered and her fingers clenched against his scalp, dragging at his too-short hair._

_She liked being touched, caressed, stroked, so he propped himself up beside her and let his hands explore every inch of her, curling his fingers around her curves, smoothing his thumb over her sensitive spots.  
_

_She liked riding him, so he lay back on the bed and drew her up over him, his fingers tightening on her hips as he pulled her down onto his cock – a sweet sheath of flesh that was heaven to dance in._

_He liked her any way and every way - it wasn't just the act of lovemaking, it was making love with_ her _._

_He was in so much trouble._

_“Mine,” he rasped, shattering himself in her body, and the inchoate noise Maria made against his temple as she orgasmed could have been either agreement or protest._

* * *

Steve made it to the senior agents’ locker rooms after contacting Carla – Fury’s assistant – but the hallways were a blur, his memory clouded and distant like it was wreathed in the steam billowing up from the shower he ran as he tried to scrub away his sins.

Maria had said yes. She’d been willing at the start. And he’d given her pleasure. He remembered that much. As for the rest of it...

“Captain Rogers.”

The voice yanked him out of the fog as he stumbled back into the locker room, pleasant and politely edged. And Steve stared at the unprepossessing man in the dark suit, who surveyed him with cool blue eyes.

“Agent Coulson.” He swallowed, wondering if he’d gone mad. “Aren’t you--?”

“Sometimes it’s a burden being alive,” Phil Coulson remarked, casual as if he hadn’t been declared dead these last three months, as if Steve wasn’t half-naked and clutching a towel around his waist in the helicarrier locker room. “The Persephone Protocols allow for an agent to be declared legally dead. It does require a period of inactivity - in my case, medically enforced while I recovered from a chest wound. But we'll talk about that later.” He paused, studying Steve with a distance that was as much a reprimand as if words had been spoken. “You need to get dressed. Fury wants to see you.”

* * *

_“You can’t still—Oh!” Maria writhed as Steve’s fingers slid into her cleft, as he closed his lips over the tip of one breast and sucked. Gently at first, then harder as he pushed her, stroking her clitoris with his thumb as his fingers coated with slickness. “God!” she choked, as she clawed at the sheets. “Oh, God, Steve! Slow down, please! I don’t—I can’t take much more—”_

_He gentled his strokes, teasing kisses across her skin, giving her time to recover. The wanting was still a fist in his gut, but he needed to go easy on her._

_Instead, he speckled her skin with kisses, scraping his teeth along the outside curve of her breast and suckling the tender flesh there with his lips until the skin was flushed and red._

* * *

“The Lieutenant has said that what happened last night was consensual.” Fury didn’t mince words. The statement was flat, and as cold as the lump in Steve’s throat that kept him silent. “However, she isn’t willing to submit to a physical examination for confirmation.”

Steve curled his fingers into his palms. “Sir, she might need medical aid—”

“It was offered. She claimed she was fine.” Fury’s hands folded on his chest as he studied Steve like a father judging his daughter’s date and finding him vastly wanting. “Lieutenant Hill may lie herself blue in the face – and will if she feels it’s for the greater good. However,” and here the casual tone grew hard, “you will apologise to her for whatever happened last night, and you will stay away from her in future.”

Steve fought the words that rose up on his tongue, clawing for air. He yanked them back with all the control he hadn’t possessed last night. He had no right to protest. Maria had never wanted him like that. He remembered the blank shock on her face when he'd asked for a kiss before the Russian infiltration. She'd never thought of him like that. Why should one night make any difference?

“The Avengers?”

“Now that Agent Coulson is back, he’ll handle the Avengers and any work that you further undertake as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Fury fixed him with a dark and dangerous gaze. “And if I find out that you’ve crossed any more of the Lieutenant’s lines, Rogers, I won’t give a flying fuck who or what you are, or how precious your cells are to this organisation. I. Will. Make. Your. Life. Hell. Are we understood?”

“We're understood.”

The words were bitter in his mouth, even if he fully comprehended Fury's protectiveness.

But Steve walked out of the interview feeling like a man on Death Row who’d just earned a reprieve.

* * *

_Maria shifted a little as he climbed in behind her. “No,” she murmured._

_“No,” he agreed, and wrapped himself around her, his chest against the slender, scarred back, his hand curling over her knuckles, their fingers lacing together. “No more.”_

_But as she fell asleep, Steve brushed his fingertips over the red mark on her breast where he’d suckled and nipped until the flesh was red and swollen. And his mouth hovered over the join of her throat – over the place where he’d bitten her a little harder than he’d intended._

_Or maybe he'd intended to bite her exactly that hard._

* * *

Steve made sure they were in a public, open place so she wouldn’t feel cornered.

Waiting for the incoming speck of a Quinjet to land was as good a place as any.

There were a few glances their way, but none of the avid curiosity Steve had initially expected this morning. Whatever had been bruited about the Avengers’ temporary lapse in sanity, somehow the fact that Steve had spent eighteen hours with Lieutenant Hill in her quarters had escaped notice. Luck? Or careful suppression of the evidence?

He should be grateful he wouldn’t have her career on his conscience, too.

 “I need to apologise—”

“No apology is necessary, Captain.” She looked tired, shadows beneath her eyes, her cheeks burnished scarlet as she kept a careful distance between them. Steve would have accepted that – she had a reputation to maintain - but she looked at him with the polite distance of a stranger. “It was...unfortunate, but it’s done.”

The casual dismissal ached. 'Unfortunate' was not the word he would have used for a night a woman spent with a man who'd left her bruised and exhausted in the morning. Steve dragged in a breath that felt like it would sear his lungs from the inside out.

“You wouldn’t see the doctors. Are you—? Did I—?”

“Just bruises.” She spoke as though they were talking about someone else’s body, someone else’s night. “And some bites. I didn’t want to have to explain them.”

No, Maria would never allow anyone to see her marked like that.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, cursing the inadequacy of the words.

“I know,” she said and her eyes met his for a moment, softened just a fraction. “It wasn’t a hardship, Rogers.”

Not a hardship, but not something she wanted, either. And that held him back more surely than Fury's threats and warnings. She didn't want Steve. He would have to learn not to want her.

The sound of the doors hissing open behind them made them turn, and Natasha and Barton walked out in perfect synchronisation, their paces matched, even to the swing of their arms. No secrets, no shame, no need to hide.

Steve looked back at Maria – and glimpsed the shadow inside her collar as she turned her head, right where her neck met her shoulder. Heat tore through him as he remembered.

_...biting down, her fingers digging hard into his back as she yelped, her hips lifting to meet his in the desperate throes of orgasm, his hands clenching on her waist..._

The memories were all he would get to keep from last night.

“Ready to go, Cap?” Steve heard the question distantly, and tore his gaze away before he did something beyond stupid. He nodded at Barton, then turned to Maria – Lieutenant Hill, now and always.

“Lieutenant.”

“Captain.”

He walked across the flight deck with Barton who said nothing until they were halfway to the Quinjet. “Rough night?”

“Yes.” He had to say it to someone, and Barton might even understand. “It never occurred to me before that when a man gains a reprieve from Death Row, he’ll still spend the rest of his life behind bars.”

It was as much as he dared to say to anyone, and it was enough.

“Ah.” Barton grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Steve said as they reached the Quinjet and he looked back only to find the doors closing behind her; Natasha striding across the tarmac towards them. “So am I.”


End file.
